Perfection
by kestraTroi7
Summary: Because that's always what everyone else has considered her to be. post-Knockout.


**Perfection**

_Kate Beckett, the perfect daughter._

She didn't know how many times, she'd come home during the holidays to find her father passed out from the drink. He'd chosen the bottle over her. The message blazed across her mind over and over, unrelenting. Nonetheless, she cleaned up the glass; she emptied out all the bottles in the sink and waited for her father to sober. It wasn't his fault.

The night haunted her as well. To many people she'd been different things. 'Darling, Jo,' to her father, 'Mrs B,' to her students, and little more than just another lawyer to others.

To Kate, though, she was mom. Someone she loved unconditionally. Someone she trusted. Someone whose loss she would never fully recover from.

_Kate Beckett, the perfect student._

When she was nineteen, Kate was fluent in three languages; her maths was second-in-the-class good, and she was working on her Law degree. She was going to be like her mom, just like her mom. She would keep her mom alive through becoming her.

She'd research at night up until she fell asleep, arms folded over her computer. She'd test herself every day on new information she'd gathered. Weekly, she'd ask a professor of law, and old friend of her mom's, to clarify a few points for her.

On one of the days when she'd lost quite a few more hours of sleep than she should've on research, she made her regular trudge over to the professor's office. As she rapped her hand against the door, she felt the exhaustion creep up on her and felt herself collapse in to a heap on the ground. The professor caught her before she fell. He murmured to her that her mother wouldn't have wanted for Kate's life to be defined by her murder.

The next day, Kate submitted her application to receive training to become a police officer.

_Kate Beckett, the perfect friend._

If there was one thing Kate could attest to, it was that she'd never spilled a secret. She'd never felt the temptation to do so too great to resist. So what if A was dating B, or C had cheated on D? Why did it have to be everyone's business?

In the late teens to early twenties, every gossip-fuelled wildfire can be traced back to its origin. C always wants to know who betrayed her when D finds out. Almost all the girls had these invisible flashing signs stamped on their foreheads, a warning that they let a secret slip. All of the girls, that was, except for Kate. She was everyone's confidant.

But Kate had secrets too. Secrets she'd never shared with anyone and didn't think she ever would.

_Kate Beckett, the perfect cop._

From her first day on the job she immersed herself in it. Diving in to cases with something bordering on obsession, teetering dangerously close to the edge of the rabbit hole on those cases that were too similar in victim or COD or family to the case that had damn near destroyed her.

All around her though, people were actively pulling her back. Giving her reasons to push through it, either through leading by example or merely treating her as one of the 'boys'. Roy was the first to tell her she was worth something. Ryan and Esposito came soon after that, sometimes the big brothers she'd never had, at other times annoyingly like her own sons, looking to her for guidance, a sign of their respect.

There was enough diversity and friendliness in the precinct to keep her going for a long while yet. Not indefinitely, but it was enough for now.

_Kate Beckett, the perfect muse._

Intelligence, strength – internal and external, drive…what more could an author have asked for?

Depth? Tick.

Beauty? Tick.

Allure? Tick.

And so Nikki Heat emerged, the embodiment of all those traits. And so Kate Beckett was immortalised in New York Times bestselling fiction. It was so easy – too easy – to gain more than she was giving.

_Kate Beckett, the perfect lover._

Josh. The sex had been incredible. Their supposed relationship had sort of dissolved in to a shallow absence of feeling, just an incredible physical relationship that leant itself rather well to becoming the basis of a connection. Perhaps a few times they'd managed serious conversations about what they were. There was no subtext in their conversations. Neither of them was stupid. Hell, a doctor and a cop, they could hardly afford to be. Whatever they said, it was the flat-out truth. Sure, it hurt sometimes, to be told that it wouldn't last.

It was okay, though. They were lovers, not partners. And certainly not in love.

_Kate Beckett, perfectly in love._

She wished she could've echoed his, 'I love you,' right back to him. She wished she could've felt his lips on her own once more. She wished she could turn back the clock to all those missed opportunities. She wished she could stay with him as he was begging her to conjure up the strength to do.

More than anything, she wished she didn't have to succumb to that inevitable darkness from which there would be no return.

_Kate Beckett, broken perfection._

Rick Castle slid the door open to her sterile white room. And there she lay, the image of broken perfection.

Her skin was ashy pale, no traces of colour to be found in the flawless contours of her face. Even like this, even so close to death, she was beautiful.

"I'm so sorry, Kate." He murmured so softly that it was almost to himself, twisting his fingers in her hair. It was splayed across the sheets, contrasting too much with her pallid face. Rick took her hand in his and bent down to brush his lips against her palm.

He vowed to himself then that however broken she may be, he would help her piece herself back together to become perfection again.

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